EPISODE 2 DUAL REVIEW: Zack and Miri Make A Porno

Zack and Miri Make A Porno - 2008

Director: Kevin Smith...and not Judd Apatow

Starring: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks

Joey's Review:

Oh, where do I begin? I’m willing to claim personal preference bias on this one, but I struggle with movies that are nothing more than stand-up comedy sets filmed with some bullshit way to tie them altogether and that’s basically what I feel Zack and Miri Make a Porno is. I find this complaint especially ironic in a movie that is about making a movie.

I had hopes with Kevin Smith at the helm, but that’s my fault for desperately hoping for the glory days of Dogma, Clerks, and Mallrats and ignoring that all his career has been for the last 15 years is self-glorification and clinging on to Jay and Silent Bob with the same “save me, save me” look that Rob Schneider gives to Adam Sandler. But hey, he found a model that created a following! It’s Judd Apatow’s model, but it works!

Does it have hockey represented?
Yes. Ok, it's a Kevin Smith movie.

Here’s the cute premise of Zack and Miri: Two roommates, desperate for cash, embark on an insane journey to create a “sure-fire-hit” porno while discovering that, amidst all the frivolous sex, what they have together might have a little more meaning than they thought. The issue that I had is what was delivered was “PORNO?! I heard porno! I have like 100 sex jokes for you that would totally be funny to film! Yay porno!” Riveting.

Movies like these throw jokes at you from all directions and so little of it is delivered with that real comedic finesse that it gives me same the problems that Judd Apatow movies often give me; it’s funnier when requoting it later (said this two weeks ago about Buckaroo Banzai...good to know the box can still listen and be ironic). Maybe it’s Judd, maybe it’s Seth Rogen, I don’t know but thinking about dialogue like “How come everybody doesn’t do it?” “Because other people have options and dignity, which we do not have…” is funnier in my head after watching it fall flat on screen. I laughed at some of it, yeah, but unlike cleverer comedy, the humor isn’t in anything more than the words and that point…I might as well just check out the highlights on the IMDB quotes page.

There's a point where I realized
Seth Rogen's acting direction was
"just be yourself." It was here. It was awkward.

For that crime, the rest of it just kind of…is there. It aimed for a sweet spot, trying to build a romance that kind of pissed me off the same way Celeste and Jesse Forever did, where both parties were basically dangling each other by a long thread for no reason other than a plot point, but even that felt like “you two work because you feed lines to each other well.”

I felt cheated out of a good story because “damn it, that joke was really good and we need to fit it in there” and it never really settled down to remind us that there was a reason we were watching this. Its entire reason for being was pretty much gone after the first hour and we’re left with a flash forward sequence that should have started with a screen that said “oh right, the movie part. Yeah, something works out. Forgot what it was, but…here you go.”

Zack and Miri makes sense as a cult classic, but as I witnessed a few weeks ago, that doesn’t make it good. Do I understand why it’s loved by people? Sure. It’s funnier the more I look back on it. Do I look down on those people for it? Nah, we all enjoy movies differently and the non-stop jokemobile with some story in there to glue it together is not something that really resonates with me. 100 Girls had the same problem and where I felt that was just a sad reading of a Wikipedia page search of “solid jokes for first-time stand up comics,” I have to respect better work by better comedians. I was just hoping for a little bit more than a bit rehearsal in film form so Zack and Miri, please take these 6 dustbusters and clean up the mess you made with this movie.

Samantha's Review:

Zack And Miri Make A Porno is a movie I have already seen, but one that I always enjoy. The movie is the story of two friends, that have always been just friends, that live together and are just BROKE. They really haven’t gone far in life and compared to other people they went to high school with aren’t doing very well. Well, eventually broke turns into no power, water, or heat in their apartment and no money to pay their rent. Now, this is the part where a conversation that I’m sure every broke as hell individual has had about being broke. This conversation always follows one of three options of how to make a lot of money really fast. 1) Hooker, 2) Making Porn, and 3) Be a Stripper. Even I have looked many people in the face and said that I’m gonna have to start stripping for money while terribly shaking my butt. However, in this film, instead of just joking about making porn for money, THEY ACTUALLY OPT TO DO IT!

Now, this is where I start to die. I’m not well versed in the ways of pornography, but apparently it’s all fantasy and I’m some cases even using pop culture. I mean...Rule 34 of the Internet, right? “If it exists there is porn of it. No exceptions.” Followed by Rule 35, “If there is no porn of it, it shall be made. No exceptions.” In this case...Star Wars.

The cast and wait?! Silent Bob? Snoogins!

This movie is fun. It’s not award winning fun, but it’s raunchy and full of one liners like “Give me two popsicle sticks and a rubber band, and I’ll find a way to fuck it.” It also gives some reality to that poverty point of desperation for money that I personally can relate to, in the sense that I definitely thought about it. But it’s funny, probably because some of it is true. Sex sells, shit happens, and sometimes sex is sex, sometimes sex is money, and sometimes sex is more than either. But for the vulgar humor, raunchy behavior, and nudity for days...I give this movie a 7 out of 10. It’s not an award winner but damn it’s great if you need a good laugh...and some boobs. Because boobs.